Reminds me of the James Thurber story where he mentions his housekeeper, Juanemma - whose mother loved the name Juanita so much that Juanemma had one sister named Juanita, as well as one named Juanhelen and one named Juangrace.

Logged

"The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are, it's the right place and the right time. Pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born." - Delenn to Sheridan: "Babylon 5 - Distant Star"

My father had a friend named Horace, with a middle name that was even worse, III. That right, he was the 3rd generation with that horrible name. He got a lot of pressure to name one of his sons Horace IV. He had a spine and his sons have much more normal names.

ETAOops. I just did the math. Horace III was born in about 1925. So Horace Jr. was born about 1900, and Horace Senior was born about 1875. Back then Horace was a very normal, reasonable name.

Horace III's sons were born in about 1950. Refusing to name one of them Horace IV makes perfect sense even if his older relatives didn't agree.

my introduced me to friends of his named Mootz and Jammie. These names were written on the class attendance chart - so they are the kids legal names. Mootz is bad enough but Jammie is pronounced like the nickname for pajamas - I have to wonder how much teasing this kid takes about his name.

I may have mentioned it before, but my parents had a friend named Vulgis. I don't think I have ever met someone else with that name. It was a family name, I think, but I felt bad for him. His brother had the perfectly nice name of Charles.

When my father was a boy, he encountered a couple of odd names. One was the name of a fellow pupil:[redacted] Goodwilly

I'm catching up on this thread. Do you know if Goodwilly became an M.D.? One of the doctors where I used to work had that last name (and a silly first name nickname to go with it) and it can't be all that common.

I think it depends on how you pronounce them. for instance, I would pronounce Tattum as Tat-tum because of the double T but based on other posts in this thread, the parents are likely to insist that it is pronounced Taytum.

Had a gentleman in the office last week. First and last names perfectly normal, but I don't remember them, so I'll manufacture some....his name was....John Moonstar Smith. Yep....Moonstar...right there on his ID card. I commented on his unique middle name, and the woman with him piped up...."I'm the one who gave him that name." All I could say was, "Well, it's certainly unique."

That name just turned up in my family tree. It appears that someone just made it up, as just the one person turns up when I do a Google search on the name. Her siblings were Joachim, Elizabeth, Christopher, Mary, and William.